Claes Jansz. Visscher was a leading Amsterdam map publisher whose output played a central role in shaping Dutch cartography in the first half of the seventeenth century. He established his publishing house in 1611 on the Kalverstraat, close to leading contemporaries such as Pieter van den Keere (#8, #109, #122, #155, #217, #273, #285) and Jodocus Hondius I (#80, #212, #253, #272). The firm was continued by his son Nicolaes Visscher I (#25, #93, #129, #287, #299) and later by his grandson Nicolaes Visscher II, maintaining its prominence well into the eighteenth century.

Following the death of the publisher Cornelis Claesz. in 1612, the copperplates for Barent Langenes’s Caert-thresoor (1598; #294, #295, #296, #383, #388) passed through several hands before being acquired by Visscher. In 1649 he reissued and expanded this material as Tabularum geographicarum contractarum libri quatuor denuo recogniti, a compact atlas divided into four parts: Europae, Asiae (titlepage, #10), Africae, and Americae nova descriptio.

Alongside the inherited Caert-thresoor plates, the 1649 edition includes twenty-three newly engraved maps, among them this map, ’t Landt van de Eendracht (#12), Java Maior (#371), and several plates engraved engraved by Benjamin Wright (#369, #370). The atlas also included two revised world maps: Typus Orbis Terrarum (this map) and Iehova (#293), originally engraved by Jodocus Hondius for the 1598 Caert-thresoor (#294 and #296).

The title of this map refers to the ship Eendracht ("Concord"), commanded by Dirk Hartog, which in 1616 encountered and charted a substantial stretch of the western Australian coast. The map extends geographically from approximately 5°N to 35°S, graduated at one-degree intervals, and spans from Java to the western and northern coasts of Australia. The Tropic of Capricorn is marked, though no longitudes are shown. A simple compass rose appears in the lower portion of the page.

The western coastline of Australia is delineated with a sequence of Dutch toponyms commemorating voyages between 1616 and 1627, including I. d’Edels Lant, ’t Landt van de Leeuwin, and other coastal designations. The sea between the Australian mainland and the Indonesian archipelago is labelled Mare Lantchidol, a Latinised form of an Indigenous name recorded during Tasman’s voyage and subsequently adopted in Dutch cartography.

Several Indonesian islands are depicted, including Madura, Iava maior, Timor, Baixos, Batulier I., Terra alta, Caber, and Vleermuyse Eylant, situating the Australian coastline within the broader VOC sphere of navigation.

The plate also contains chronological errors. “I.d'Edels Lant det. 1639” should read 1619, referring to its discovery by Frederik de Houtman and Jacob d’Edel aboard the Dordrecht and Amsterdam. Similarly, “t'Lant van de Leeuwin det. 1627” should read 1622, marking the voyage of the Leeuwin, which recorded the southernmost Dutch landfall on the western coast of the Southland.

Peter van der Krogt, ed., Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici, vol. 3 (’t Goy-Houten: HES & De Graaf, 1997–), 428–34

Dorothy Prescott, “A Little Master’s Piece,” The La Trobe Journal, 79 (2007): 31–43

Ashley Baynton-Williams, “Barent Langenes: An Unrecorded Miniature Atlas,” Map Forum 2 (1999), republished online here.